Arbor Update

Ann Arbor Area Community News

Allied Media Conference

Posted by MarkDilley on 17. June 2005

For those who are interested in alternative media, which I would assume would be many, the Allied Media Conference is this weekend in Bowling Green, Ohio, a mere 1.5 hours away. It is put on, in part, by Clamor.

Shall interested parties car pool?

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U-M Committee Recommends Coca-Cola Investigation

Posted by Scott Trudeau on 17. June 2005

Students Organizing for Labor and Economic Equality (SOLE) has been pressuring the U for a year to dump their contracts with Coca-Cola due to grievous labor and environmental abuses. The University’s Vendor Code of Conduct Dispute Review Board has recommended the U pursue anindependent investigation of these allegations and sign no new contracts with Coke until the investigation has been agreed to, completed, and that Coke fix any identified problems satisfactorily. Click “Read More” to see SOLE’s press release.

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Ann Arburb

Posted by MarkDilley on 17. June 2005

Props to this thread, and this phrase:

Ann Arburb

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Ghana documentaries

Posted by MarkDilley on 17. June 2005

This Saturday, 18 June 2005 at the Frieze Building, in Room 1050, from 4-6 p.m., is a screening and critical discussion of rough cuts of two short ethnographic documentaries.

“Excuse Me to Say, Conversations with Young Women about Beauty, Desire, and Risk in Accra,” 25 minutes.

and

“If All Else Fails, Shopping for Health in Accra,” 25 minutes.

From the forty hours of footage shot in Accra, Ghana over eight weeks in 2001

Other work from the editor

A 'Perfect Storm' Brewing?

Posted by Rob Goodspeed on 17. June 2005

Let’s see:

Write the ArborUpdate 2005 City Council Questionnaire

Posted by Scott Trudeau on 17. June 2005

The ArborUpdate “staff” and some frequent commenters are developing a questionnaire for city council candidates in the upcoming primary. Got a burning question? Check out the questionnaire in progress and leave your questions in the comments below (or if you grok wikis, add your question directly to the work in progress). We reserve the right to not ask questions we don’t like. You can ask ‘em yourself.

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Greens to focus on IRV

Posted by Scott Trudeau on 17. June 2005


The local Green Party has decided not to field candidates for city council this year. Instead, their energies will be focused on the ongoing Ann Arbor Instant Run-off Voting (IRV) campaign, hoping to follow on the heels of the successful IRV campaign in Ferndale. This weekend they’ll be gathering signatures to get the initiative on the ballot.

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"Help stop the Great Train Robbery!" excursion, 25 June

Posted by Murph on 14. June 2005

The SEMG (Southeast Michigan Group) Sierra Club, Transit Riders United, and Michigan Association of Railroad Passengers are holding a ride-in from Pontiac to Kalamazoo and back on 25 June to show support for continued federal funding for Amtrak. Full details behind the cut.

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Enders Book Talk on C-SPAN

Posted by Ari Paul on 14. June 2005

This just in from our contacts at the University Press.

Former Daily reporter Dave Enders, author of “Baghdad Bulletin: Dispatches on the American Occupation” (Univ. of Michigan Press, 2005) will be on C-SPAN’S Booknotes program Sunday night, June 19th at 10 p.m.

Read a review in Bad Subjects.

Update: Click here to record this showing on your Tivo.

City Council's 3-site/greenway hearing...the short version

Posted by Murph on 14. June 2005

Here’s my highly abbreviated (and moderately irreverant) account of the hearing, meant as a starting point for conversation rather than as actual content. Enough AUers were there that the important details will emerge. Apologies for potential name misspellings of speakers.

Susan Pollay (DDA): The Three Site Plan comes with all sorts of good things. Here’s a landscape architect to explain why the park proposed in the TSP for 1st/William is good and to talk about what greenways require.

Margaret Wong (Friends of the Ann Arbor Greenway): A full-scale greenway would be much better than what the TSP proposes. We should strive for the most we can achieve, rather than the least we can get away with. We could be like Rochester, MI!

Linda Brower (Parks Advisory Committee): We really like the “full-scale” version of the greenway. Please take us seriously, Council.

Janis Bobrin (Washtenaw County Drain Commissioner): “This is going to be the non-advocacy part of the meeting. I’m going to stick to facts.” Here are issues that affect watersheds. And now, here’s somebody to talk about watershed management through public art.

Norm Cox (Greenway Collaborative): Here are nine well-reasoned, and, in combination, quite devastating reasons why a greenway along the railroad and Allen Creek is a silly idea. At all. Let’s direct this energy towards a real greenway, like along the Huron River.

Amy HarrisKuras (Parks Department): I’ll pretend I don’t know anything about 1st/William and talk about 415 W. Washington and 921 N. Main instead. Here’s where a greenway could run on those sites, leaving the rest of the space for things like artists’ studios and affordable housing.

City Council members: We’re now going to ask formulaic and very predictable questions that make it clear what each of us thinks.

Public input (3 minutes each):
> We think the Three Site Plan is good! (23 variations.)
> We think the Friends’ plan is good! (27 variations.)
> We have opinions that Murph will not be able to categorize easily into one of those! (5 variations.)

Mayor: We’re going to stop now, and pick up again next Monday, 20 June, at the end of the City Council meeting, which will probably be around 10pm.

Best quote: the person who came over to me after I spoke and asked, “Is it just me, or do other people get really annoyed when Doug Cowherd stands up and claims to speak for 4,000 people, and then claims that 90% of the people here support the Friends, when input has been really very evenly divided?”

UPDATE, 11:30am: The Ann Arbor News puts the “score” at 24 DDA supporters, 25 greenway supporters, 7 neutral. I think at least some of their “neutrals”, “just advising the council to be deliberative,” went into my “greenway” column for hitting the “wait for FEMA and Calthorpe” points pretty hard and just not explicitly stating greenway support.

The article also mentions that the Mayor intends to host a town hall meeting – a much less formal event than a public hearing – at 7pm, 27 June, in the Council chambers.

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